School funding, lawsuits never seem to end

Former Texas Supreme Court Justice Scott Brister, who cast the only dissenting vote in a decision that threw out the school funding system seven years ago, is fairly sure the state will lose a brand new round of litigation.

A majority of the state’s 1,029 school districts have already joined one of the four school funding lawsuits that will go to trial later this year.

Scott Brister

The suits largely claim the state is not meeting its constitutional responsibility to adequately fund public education and to do it efficiently, which courts have defined as developing a system that produces roughly the same amount of revenue at the same taxing effort.

Up for debate is “how much” is enough when it comes to public school funding.

Neither Brister nor other school funding experts could say.

“Nobody in the Legislature or the court can tell you that,” Brister said. “That’s why we have markets. Markets find the price.”

The state of Texas has made education standards considerably tougher with new testing and achievement requirements that even legislators could not pass without remediation, school finance lawyer David Thompson said during a panel discussion sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which supports smaller government and school choice

How much does it cost to achieve those new accountability standards?

David Thompson

“The honest answer is, we don’t know the cost,” Thompson said. “There is not a single study out there that even attempts to answer the question – what does it take to accomplish what we are requiring of every student – not just the top 8 or 9 percent that can get into UT.”

School funding cases have gone to the Texas Supreme Court six times, including the landmark Edgewood case decided in 1989.

Because the high court has only three new justices since he retired, Brister says he expects the 9-member court will again find the state’s school funding system unconstitutional – at least in parts. He doubts the court will find the funding inadequate.

“Most kids are passing the (TAKS) test, so it must be adequate,” he said.

Brister dissented from the otherwise unanimous court ruling in 2005.

Among other objections, Brister contends the constitutional requirement for an “efficient” system doesn’t mean equal funding for equal tax rates.

He favors free market approaches to education.

“Efficiency is a harsh principle. That’s how you get more for less,” he said. “Competition is the only way you get more for less.”

Efficiency should result in school district consolidation, he argued, noting the I 410 loop around San Antonio touches 12 school districts.
School consolidation scares people, although “it won’t be the end of the world,” he said.

House Public Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, acknowledges that it’s very difficult to fix school financing. School consolidation remains unpopular because school districts are the largest employer for some communities, he noted.

Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands

Eissler doesn’t believe that more money is the answer for school districts.

Over the past 13 years, Texas school funding has increased $61 billion above inflation and enrollment growth, Eissler said.

“Putting more money into schools doesn’t make them better,” he said. “There’s been no shortage of money, no shortage of effort, no shortage of lawsuits.”

School funding remains complicated and difficult to understand – except for the experts who speak in language that is foreign to the public.

“There’s a reason why people want to keep it complicated and hidden. It’s easier to ratchet it up,” Eissler said. “That’s why we are where we are. We have to simplify it.”

The former school board member doesn’t believe that higher academic standards will cost more because educators need to adapt to new technology.

“Access to information that kids have today is unbelievable,” Eissler said.

When he attended grade school in the 1950s, “knowledge would double every seven years. Now, I think, it’s doubling every 20 minutes.”

But Texans must understand the pressures facing schools, Thompson said. The school finance lawyer noted that 85,000 additional students fill the classrooms every year. About 60 percent come from low income families. Those children, typically, are more expensive to educate.

And the new academic standards are the toughest in history. Today’s 9th grade class must pass all end-of-course exams and meet career-readiness standards to graduate from high school.

“We are raising the standards for a growing and needy population,” Thompson said.

He also noted the average high school teacher in large school districts teaches about 170 students per day. One assignment taking about 10 minutes per student to grade means “25 hours outside, or in addition to the regular teaching load” for that teacher to complete.